Plastics News Show Daily - April 4, 2012 - (Page 3)

PLASTICS NEWS, April 4, 2012 3 NEWSCLIPS Donation brings tech students to show ORLANDO, FLA. — Under the watchful eye of plastics engineering technology instructor Dan Ralph, 10 students from Brooklyn Park, Minn.-based Hennepin Technical College visited NPE on April 3. The students’ visit was funded by a $16,000 donation from Aspen Research, a contract research and development company that has a long association with HTC. The college and company are cooperating on work related to biopolymers, said Ralph, an NPE veteran who has brought students to the event for the last 26 years. “This is a great opportunity for HTC students to experience the top level of science and technology in materials, design, processes and automation in the plastics industry,” he said. Ralph said HTC’s plastics diploma is the best-equipped twoyear course in the U.S., “if not the world,” with a range of equipment including a twin-screw extruder donated by medical-device company Boston Scientific. HTC has a record of placing all students who finish the plastics technology program with employers, mainly in the extrusion and injection molding sectors. “Thanks to support from Aspen Research, students will see the most innovative ideas in the industry,” Ralph said. HPM US-made, China-owned By Nina Ying Sun PLASTICS NEWS STAFF ORLANDO, FLA. — The HPM brand of U.S. injection molding machines is back at NPE — but now it’s made in China. A 220-metric-ton servo-hydraulic machine is churning out clear plastic boxes at HPM North America Corp.’s NPE exhibit (Booth 26058). This is the first HPM injection molding machine that has been assembled in the Chinese parent company’s factory in Foshan. It is manufactured based on American standards including dimensions and safety standards, said Richard Yan, CEO of Guangdong Yizumi Precision Machinery Co. Ltd. About 15 percent of the compo- nents on the machine were sourced in the U.S., mostly electric control parts, he added. The NPE2012 exhibition is the first step of what Yan called “active sales” of HPM injection presses, which will be in the range of 80-1,100 tonnes and will target such end applications as electrical appliances, packaging and consumer products. “It’s perfect timing,” Yan said, alluding to the healthy growth of the U.S. market indicated by the latest economic data. As the ancient Chinese saying goes, success is the right people at the right time in the right location. “From what we’ve seen at the show, there is a clear uptick in the market.” The new HPM machine will offer strong price advantages. Yan said the prices will be “no higher than used machinery, which has seen a price hike due to short supply in this country.” After acquiring HPM’s intellectual property, brand and customer lists through an auction in March 2011, Yizumi established HPM North America Corp. in September 2011, and then acquired 100 percent of Bivouac Engineering and Service Co. in January. Bivouac owner and former HPM president William Flickinger was appointed president of HPM North America. “He is now fully dedicated to bringing the HPM machines back,” Yan said. The first and foremost task is to build a team, Yan noted. HPM NA now has eight technical staff See HPM, Page 65 Stay connected via print or digitally ORLANDO, FLA. — In addition to producing three 68-page printed show dailies at NPE2012, Plastics News also is delivering news from the show worldwide via various online and digital channels. Digital replicas of the printed dailies can be accessed via the link in the upper-right corner of PN’s home page at www.plasticsnews.com. Each new digital edition should be available by early morning on the same day the printed edition is distributed throughout the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando. PN, which is running a 4,200-square-foot exhibit (Booth 5045) in the West Hall, has a team of 16 editorial people on-site in Orlando, plus eight more handling production in the publication’s Akron, Ohio, headquarters office. The microsite at www.plasticsnews.com/npe is the main repository for all show-related news and features, and already includes more than 125 stories from the pre-show issues and NPE’s first full day. That number will continue to grow during and after the April 1-5 show. Some of the editors are tweeting and blogging from the event, and you can follow that activity by clicking on the Twitter (www.twitter.com/plasticsnews), Facebook (www.facebook.com/ plasticsnews) and LinkedIn (http://bit.ly/pnlinkedin) icons in the upper-right corner of the online NPE website noted above. Videos from the show floor are being posted on the NPE microsite as well as on the video section of PN’s multimedia section online (www.plasticsnews.com/video). Headlines also can be viewed on the 18 flat-screen plasma monitors positioned around the convention center complex, above the clusters of 36 product-locator terminals being managed by Plastics News. Brown launches Quad former By Roger Renstrom PLASTICS NEWS CORRESPONDENT Show registration already beating ’09 ORLANDO, FLA. — Registration for NPE2012 as of the end of Tuesday, April 3, is well ahead of the numbers for the last show, in 2009. The current figure is 51,200, which already surpasses the 43,000 total that registered for the entire five-day show three years ago. The show’s organizer, the Society of the Plastics Industry Inc., had estimated that total registrations for the four-day 2012 show would top 50,000 and could hit 60,000. Six years ago, NPE2006 had total registration of 64,450. ORLANDO, FLA. — Marking 60 years of thermoforming innovation, Brown Machine LLC (Booth 3329) introduced its new Quad series with 180 tons of coining tonnage, 260 tons of maximum station strength and virtually no platen deflection, said Jim Robbins, vice president of sales and marketing. The oven design incorporates a 20 percent safety factor in even the most demanding coining applications and a 30 percent service life factor, he said. Brown Machine developed the C5-5454SP model for demonstration without material at NPE2012. The engineering design was fixed in September and metalwork began in November. The machine was loaded on two trucks March 19 at the Beaverton, Wis., plant and reached Orlando on March 23. A previous version introduced at NPE2009 generated sufficient response over three years for placement in 30 applications with a variety of materials, Robbins said. The new machine incorporates intelligent Smart Control software with a forming process display, a help menu feature, automatic systems and trending information, capability for quick recalibration with a servo-actuated head ad- Jim Robbins, VP of sales and marketing, shows off Brown’s new Quad Series thermoforming machine at NPE2012. justment and other features. Balanced oven profiling allows materials to be heated on a more consistent basis, and adjustable upper and lower water-cooled plates at the oven in-feed eliminate residual tunnel-effect heating, according to the company. A new rail assembly design increases flexibility, rigidity and stability with less tension. The addition of hinge points along the index rails allows material to be repositioned easily and eliminates tension of the chain and chain slides. Without additional cost in its “life success” program, Brown Machine offers a training-for-life opportunity for buyers of new machines. Each buyer can obtain access to one-day training sessions at the plant in Beaverton. Three levels of classes are offered. That program continues to include the service-for-life aspect for Brown Machine customers. Brown Machine, which occupies 150,000 square feet of space and employs 150, will be celebrating 60 years of business this summer. Spell Capital Partners LLC of Minneapolis owns Brown Machine. Bryan Redman is president. IML Containers opening another US site ST. PLACIDE, QUEBEC — North America IML Containers will open a new injection molding plant in Flagstaff, Ariz., to serve the West Coast. The company, a subsidiary of Bois-d’Amont, France-based packager Groupe Lacroix, has leased a 40,000-square-foot plant in Flagstaff to house its newest branch, IML Arizona. The plant will manufacture in-mold-labeled packaging for refrigerated and frozen foods. The new facility should begin operating by the middle of the year and will employ about 40 workers. IML chose Flagstaff over other West Coast locations because of its proximity to California, its easy access to railroads and interstate highways and its reduced energy costs, said Nicolas Bouveret, North American production manager, in an email. IML also operates plants in Le Mars, Iowa, and at its headquarters in St. Placide. If the new branch is successful, IML plans to hire more workers and build a larger facility in nearby Bellemont, Ariz. Maplan gets new name, divisions By Angie DeRosa PLASTICS NEWS STAFF ORLANDO, FLA. — Extruder maker American Maplan Corp. of McPherson, Kan., now is known as Battenfeld-Cincinnati USA (Booth 911). Parent company BattenfeldCincinnati Austria GmbH changed its name in 2010 for the K show to introduce the new brand to market, said Judith Lebic, head of marketing. “We did that very carefully,” Lebic said in an April 3 interview at NPE2012 in Orlando. The company in 2010 also structured into three divisions: infrastructure, construction and packaging. B-C is making sure NPE2012 visitors know about the new branding. The company introduced the Eotek extruded profile during its open house April 2. B-C USA is in an alliance with Eovations LLC of Bay City, Mich., where the composite profiles are extruded for use in the construction industry. Profiles are formed from standard thermoplastic resin and fiber. But Kurt Waldhauer, president and CEO of B-C USA, said the technology addresses many issues with traditional wood composites in the industry. The extruded oriented technology combines a functional mineral component with a thermal plastic resin in equal parts yielding a fully fiberized article. The product therefore is highly resistant to rain, ice, snow and degradation from the elements. The product also is not susceptible to mold, mildew or insect infection. Moreover, the strength of the product makes it a possibility in structural applications in building and construction. Waldhauer noted that the housing market, of course, bottomed out. The PVC pipe sector will show some improvement over last year. While that market traditionally has followed gross See B-C, Page 66 Plastics News photo by Michael Marcotte  http://www.plasticsnews.com http://www.plasticsnews.com/npe http://www.twitter.com/plasticsnews http://www.facebook.com/plasticsnews http://www.bit.ly/pnlinkedin http://www.facebook.com/plasticsnews http://www.plasticsnews.com/video

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Plastics News Show Daily - April 4, 2012

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